He was up just before 7. They were outside for awhile. And did some Wizard School. I think I heard him singing about Pluto. And he watched some Timmy Time. He was lying on the floor and Carly was watching Nas Daily videos when I came down just before 8. He was asking if they had woken me up. They did glittery glue: “This is a card for the persons that doesn’t have very much food.” Carly had told him about getting food for the refugee preschool. Did that for awhile, then he asked to play the Monsters game he had wanted to play last night. Got out my iPad and he showed Carly how it works.
Talked to me about teeth falling out. “What if it happens to a grown up?” “How strong is the tooth?” I told him about Carly’s friend Paul falling on his bike and knocking out his tooth. He wanted to know “How big was the bike? And how tall was the bike? And how fast was he going? How safe was he, mama? What was he doing that made it dangerous?”
Carly was talking about meals versus snacks and August said “I don’t call them ‘meals’ cuz I think that’s a gross word to say…What ‘meals’ mean, actually?” He was being indecisive about what to eat. He had agreed to alternate popcorn and oatmeal, but then wouldn’t eat more oatmeal. He and I did some glitter glue painting, then he asked me to move the piano back over “where the friends are”. It’s been over by the Duplos for a few days. He was playing “Row your boat” He took his clothes off because he wanted to be cold. Then he tried to take a blurry photo of him on the couch. He said “I’m gonna get you in this magafan. It’s the sharpest thing in the universe.”
We went upstairs to get clothes for him as he said he wanted to go for a walk. He asked “What’s oatmeal? It’s a funny word to say.” He played music machine on drying rack. I put the blue like-grampa shirt on him and he said and he said “When you finish putting it on I’ll change into to a smurf.” His underwear was also blue. On the way down the stairs he pretended they were squeaking. I said our stairs weren’t likely to squeak, so he asked why stairs would squeak. We talked about wood stairs. He wanted to hear the explanation again so asked “Could you talk about that more?”
Carly had gone to the store to do grocery shopping for us. We read The Smurf Apprentice (him being a Smurf had reminded him) He then ate all his oatmeal, then I got the popcorn for him. We read the rest of the Smurf book. Carly was home at 11. August went to his piano: “I’m gonna take all the keys out except lower C. I’m gonna make a song with just one note.” He did that, then we put the keys back in and he played Row Your Boat. He turned to Angeles and said “Lets call this Merry. It looks like a Merry.”
Carly was trying to get him interested in going to the beach as I was going to have some work time. He wasn’t excited by the idea he said “Then we’ll go for a walk. I’m gonna be kinda lazy today.” I took a shower. He was playing with Legos, then I took him up to his bath. He asked how people went to the bathroom before toilets. I told him about chamber pots. Turned out to be the discussion of the day as he asked about them a few times.
We played two games of Snakes and Ladders. I won first, then he won’t be second. Each time though we said that everyone would win so we kept going with the second piece until it finished. He was giving me licorice when we were tied on square, knowing I don’t like licorice. Carly got him hot chocolate, then I went up to start working. They went for a walk and did recycling. They tried to go to a park but a dog was following them everywhere. They came back and played outside and I’m sure Carly took care of the plants.
They then went to the store again, to get food for the kindergarten for refugees in south Tel Aviv. August was very helpful in the store, then helped carry the groceries into the school. He carried diapers on his head. They got home at 4:15. I was working on reworking an essay on art as resistance. Didn’t finish it, but got most of it done and figured out how to finish the rest of the entry.
When they came in he said “Dada, you need to get me another bamboo stick because mama ripped mine.” Turns out the story was that he had poked his in cat poop and then poked Carly with it, so it got taken away and I think she broke of the end of it.
Carly was cooking spaghetti on the stove when the gas ran out. At first we thought it was completely out, but finally realized that we had to switch to the second tank. Carly got him peanut butter and crackers, but he didn’t like that she had broken the crackers into smaller bites. He said he wanted me to do them in the future. He was then a crazy marble machine on my lap, as his head was in my hand and I bounced his head on the couch. Also he has now started to claim that the peanut butter just soaks into his hands. He was going crazy on the couch and said “It’s because I had hot chocolate. Your plan didn’t work!” The plan being to give him hot chocolate earlier in the day so it didn’t affect going to sleep.
He and I read The Berenstain Bears and the Missing Dinosaur Bone, then had spaghetti. As some point we also read YoungCam Jansen and the Double Beach Mystery. Carly was cooking an artichoke, but he wanted to go to the playground with me. I suggested she would save the artichoke for him. When she said she would he said “Thank you mama!” and went and gave her a hug. He then told her “You keep watching that video.” We left at 5:30.
He steered us to the playground and to the exercise equipment and mainly played there. He was climbing on things and seeing what he could do, and trying to make me nervous. He asked “Why’s baby swings have ropes? So they don’t look up and get metal in their eyes? Like Colin’s swing they built him. It was ropes. I still remember that.” Moved around to different things, and he was standing with one foot out on something and told me “I don’t want you to miss it!” He was playing on the teeter totter sort of thing that you stand on and a boy came over and got on with him. After that August asked me “What’s Timbuktu? What’s Constantinople?” He was thinking of Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop. Which we read several days back.
On the way home we walked around the Holly block. He said “Timbuktu is a funny word… Constantinople is a funny word.” One of the street lights was out and he speculated on why. He came up with the bulb was out, it was out of electricity, a circuit is broken…”so many ways.” We were home at 6:05.
They shared the artichoke. Then he remembered the fan and wanted me to turn it on. We did that, and Carly didn’t realize it was on until a good half hour later. He went to the bathroom, and told me he likes sleeping next to me. Out of the bathroom he asked “Mama, do you always make noises when you wake me up to nurse?” At first we thought he meant in the middle of the night when he wants to nurse, and Carly was incredulous. But then we realized he meant in the morning when she gets him up before she goes to work.
He and I went and played with the Duplo “maze” he had built with Carly earlier. “Only animals can play in it. It has hay all over it. You can eat the hay.” He destroyed that, then he and I made a new structure.
Back on the couch, thinking of the fan, I think, he asked me “Do things wear out when you use them or when you don’t use them?” And asked “What’s the first square Berenstain Bears book we ever read?” Pretty sure it was Double Dare, which we got in Korea at one of the used book stores and Carly first started reading to him. We read No Girls Allowed, then Carly took him upstairs. He told her “You always drink alcohol.” Which a.) isn’t true b.) he said because the topic had come up earlier in regard to why her friend Paul had fallen off his bike. Also, this morning when she was watching the Nas Daily videos he heard the term ‘Zionist colonizer’ a
nd was then asking “Zionist colonizer? Who’s a Zionist colonizer?” and repeating it.
I came up and said goodnight and left them just before 8.